Alexander’s tough call as Fleetwood duo released

Alan Goodall

Rob Stocks

Fleetwood Town boss Graham Alexander insists tough decisions have to be made after two senior players were not offered new deals.

Jon Parkin and Alan Goodall, who both figured in Fleetwood’s Wembley victory last week, bade farewell to Highbury yesterday.

Parkin was at Fleetwood for two seasons, scoring 22 goals in 62 appearances in all competitions.

Goodall joined Town in 2011, securing promotion from the Conference in his first full season.

He was sent out on loan to Grimsby at the start of the last campaign but returned to battle his way back into the starting 11. Playing as a holding midfielder, he was crucial to Town’s late-season success.

Alexander admitted he’d faced a difficult choice over the pair, both 32, but had decided Town needed to make room for fresh blood.

The Town boss told The Gazette: “I’ve got to make some tough decisions now. We’re going to the next level.

“I just think it’s the right thing to do for the club and for the team.

“They were both tough decisions to make. They have both played a massive part this season in the success of the team.

“But we have to bring in new players, and if we are bringing new players in I have to let other players go. It’s as simple as that.”

Alexander insists both Goodall and Parkin will have no problems finding themselves new clubs, particularly given their involvement in the business end of Fleetwood’s promotion campaign.

He added: “They will both, without a doubt, go on to other clubs and do good jobs.

“They have both shown how valuable they are to the club. I said to Goody, ‘You’ve been here three years and helped the club to two promotions. You will definitely get a good club on the back of it.’

“As a manager you look at players who have been part of successful teams and ask if they still have something to offer. Both players definitely have.

“I get paid to make these decisions for the club and I have to do the right thing.

“We wish them the best for the next step because they are good lads and good players.”

The Fleetwood boss admitted the players’ ages had been taken into consideration, but he insisted the primary concern is to strengthen the squad ready to kick-off in League One in August.

“It’s not just black and white,” he said. “You have to look at all the aspects.

“You look at the positions, where we need to improve, a player’s age. But at the end it’s all about asking: can we improve the team and the squad, and if so how?”

One thing is for certain, neither Parkin nor Goodall will forget their final game with Town.

Goodall started the play-off final at Wembley, Parkin coming on as a 74th-minute substitute.

“It’s a great way for both of them to bow out,” said Alexander.

The Town boss is now waiting to hear back from a pair of players who have been offered new deals.

Right-back Conor Mc-Laughlin and goalkeeper Chris Maxwell are also out of contract.

But Alexander is confident of tempting the pair to stay and test themselves at a higher level with Fleetwood.

Negotiations are ongoing, but complicated by Conor McLaughlin’s absence from the UK.

He is currently in Chile on international duty with Northern Ireland. The countries meet in a friendly on Thursday.

“Both Conor and Chris are out of contract,” explained Alexander. “We’ve made offers to both of them. We spoke to them straight after the play-off final.

“Conor was going off to South America that day, so we needed to speak to them.

“Things are ongoing, but it’s a bit difficult with Conor being away on international duty. We want him to concentrate on that.

“We’re in contact with their agents and we want to get something done with both of them.

“They have both turned heads. They did the job we hoped they would do and expected them to do.

“They are both good young players and this is the next natural step for them – to test themselves in League One with us and establish themselves as League One players.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Fleetwood Weekly News provides news, events and sport features from the Fleetwood area. For the best up to date information relating to Fleetwood and the surrounding areas visit us at Fleetwood Weekly News regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Fleetwood Weekly News requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.